‘Family Ties’ stars gather for family reunion

The principal cast of  “Family Ties” all gathered for the first time in 18 years on Thursday to help promote a new memoir by the creator of the iconic 1980s television sitcom, Gary David Goldberg.

The idea had been for Goldberg to be on TODAY alone to promote “Sit, Ubu, Sit,” whose title is taken from the tagline of the show that ran on NBC for seven seasons, ending in 1989. But the cast members, including Michael J. Fox, wanted to be on with Goldberg to celebrate the show, its success and the careers it launched.

“Had it not been for this book, we would not have had this reunion,’ said Michael Gross, who played Steven Keaton, the father of the clan. “This is the first time in about 18 years that we have all been on the same piece of real estate at the same time.”

Sitting in the TODAY studio in two rows of director’s chairs, the six cast members needed no time to catch up on all the time that had passed. “We are all instantly again who we were 25 years ago when we all met,” Goldberg told TODAY co-host Matt Lauer.

Goldberg was a late bloomer in the Hollywood writing business. A sometime actor from Brooklyn who led a gypsy lifestyle with his dog, Ubu, and the woman who would become his wife, Diana Meehan, Goldberg was 30 when he took up writing. He was 38 in 1982 when NBC bought his pilot, “Family Ties,” about a nuclear family of five. (Another child, Andy, played by Brian Bonsall, would be added later.)

“By one of these quirks in the time-space continuum, we were the only nuclear family on television,” said Goldberg, and that immediately set the program apart.

As the nation settled into the Ronald Reagan years, the show would be preceded on the NBC menu by the Huxtable family in “The Cosby Show,” giving the network the No. 1 and No. 2 shows on television. It was followed by “Cheers,” another highly popular show. At its height, “Family Ties” was watched by a third of America’s television audience.

“We caught the crest of a wave there,” said Fox, who played Alex P. Keaton, the ultraconservative, success-obsessed son. “We thought we were having fun with it, but it was having fun with us,” he said of the show. “It was big, it was huge.”

It’s a mystery of life why some shows are popular and others aren’t. Goldberg writes in his book that readers have to connect with a sitcom family and want to be like that family. They also have to believe by watching the show, they’ll learn how to become a better family themselves. (Read an excerpt from Goldberg’s memoir, “Sit, Ubu, Sit”)

But the characters dictate where the show is going to go, and “Family Ties” was no different. Goldberg’s original idea was to have it revolve around the liberal parents, Steven Keaton, a bearded public-television executive, and his wife, Elyse, played by Meredith Baxter, an architect. But it soon became about the children, especially the buttoned-down character of Alex played by Fox.

“The thing about a sitcom is it’s going to take on a life of its own,” said Justine Bateman, who played daughter Mallory. The youngest daughter, Jennifer, was played by Tina Yothers, who was 8 when the show started; she revealed that she had the flu when she auditioned and almost threw up on set.

“I felt if they saw me throwing up, I wouldn’t have a job tomorrow,” she said, to which Goldberg replied with a laugh, “If she had thrown up she would have been fired.”

Goldberg also confessed that he wanted to cast another young actor, Matthew Broderick, who was then an unknown actor four years away from his breakout title role in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” in the role of Alex. But Broderick was acting in New York and didn’t want to move to California.

Fox had auditioned for the role, but Goldberg thought he was too much of a smart aleck and rejected him. A production assistant nagged Goldberg into bringing Fox back for a second audition, at which he won the role.

It was a lucky thing for Fox and Hollywood, and he’s said he was on the verge of giving up his dream of an acting career to go home to Canada when he landed the part.

“I was eating cardboard,” he said. “I was playing duck-the-landlord. It was bad. It was bad.”

All said that what made the show work for so long was the selflessness of the cast and their genuine affection for one another. “You’re looking not only at a talented cast, but some of the most important people in my life,” Goldberg said.

“There was the humor, we were very topical,” said Gross. “Every episode ended with a group hug.”

NBC wanted to do an eighth season of the show and offered the cast an enormous amount of money to do it, but they all felt it had gone far enough.

“I’d say creatively, for myself, whatever goals I had, had been met,” Goldberg said. “We didn’t want to abuse our relationship with the audience.”

Goldberg would later produce “Brooklyn Bridge” and reunite with Fox on “Spin City.” In that second partnership, the two had what are euphemistically called “creative differences” and didn’t speak for more than a year after the show ended. The two have reconciled and stay in touch regularly, and Fox insisted on coming to the TODAY Show, despite the Parkinson’s disease that affects his coordination and speech, to be with Goldberg.

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